PC bad for our Education?

Diarmsquid

An article in today's (22nd March) issue of the irish Independant said that a study released in Britain today shows that "Computers in the home and school can be bad for pupils' educational health,..." The article says that there are too many recreational distractions with home computers and computers at school are a waste of time and often lead to a decrease in a pupil's performance!

What do you all think of this?

PurpleFistMixer

I laugh long and hard.


The computer has taught me a lot more about many many things than school ever could.

Computers at school are a waste of time because we can't do anything with a point on them. Well the teachers can use them, but actual computer classes, in my experience, have been a consistent waste of time and effort.

tman

****ing duh :rolleyes:

properly implemented they can be a great resource for study/learning. but they rarely are.
kids aren't like max wilde... they only ever want to check out porn, music and games

philologos

im now thinking of pursuing IT as a career due to PC's and have picked up some programming from it which could make me money in later life (actually I have a lil website business €100 for a design) PCs are essential ways of learning no doubt about that I could make a damned long list of what i have learned just from my internet connection

seamus

As said, they could be a much more powerful tool, but they just haven't been properly applied yet.

As it stands, for most of us when we're not using computers in a work capacity, we're using them in a recreational capacity. The internet has a much bigger potential than the TV for education, but like the TV, the computer can do two things that are much more fun than learning (to kids): play games and show things that make you laugh.

Ideally computers would become part of the interconnected world. Kids could receive and submit their homework via email, homework assignments could include weblinks for further learning. The possibilities are endless, but there's a lot of stigmatism to overcome, and a lot of money to be spent first.

Fobia

I'd actually tend to agree with the article.

Yes, I've learnt alot from using computers and the internet that will be beneficial to me later in life, but in the ancient school system that's in place my grades have suffered as a result of my computer usage. Staying up too late affects my concentration on a regular basis, and instead of doing homework, I usually end up to just reading up on something to do with networking or linux....which again affects my grades.

So yes, computers cause my performance in school to decrease, but I know so much more about the stuff I care about and am interested in that I ever would if I just listened in class instead of sleeping due to staying up till 4 the night before, or did my homework every day.

The article's right, the jist of it is wrong.

grimloch

my grades have suffered as a result of my computer usage

mine too, id be doing alot better in school if i didnt spend time playing games and the like instead of working

that being said a fair amount of school related work has been done on the computer but more than a few people i know have had grades affected by using a computer instead of doing work

PurpleFistMixer

I'd say that the computer has negatively affected my schoolwork (because I suppose it's not a good thing to be doing my homework while browsing), but then again, if I didn't have the computer/internet, I'd probably go insane from stress and whatever.

They might as well start making protests about teenagers having friends while they should be studying, and write articles about how friends aren't educational and should therefore be banned.

Bah humbug!

Diarmsquid

PurpleFistMixer wrote:

Computers at school are a waste of time because we can't do anything with a point on them. Well the teachers can use them, but actual computer classes, in my experience, have been a consistent waste of time and effort.

I'd have to agree here, computer classes in school are a waste of time. By the time we get up to the computer room and log on we have about 20 minutes left and we always get the teachers telling us that they have found an excellent website called GOOGLE!! :rolleyes: and that we should type that into the "top bar thingy" with out any spaces or capital letters!!!! The teachers haven't a clue. A total waste of time. But I'm not sure it's fair to say that computers are a big fault for low grades!

newgrange

Computers should be used much more widely in education. Our school is completely networked, and access to the Internet plays a role in many subjects.

Computer 'classes' I suppose are necessary to teach keyboard skills for effective use of the PC as a learning tool, but real learning comes in everyday use in the classroom.

marco murphy

Ive a serious problem,i thoughti was the only one.Iam on dialup so big phone bills,i stay up for ridiculous hours.

Fobia

Poblachtach wrote:

Ive a serious problem,i thoughti was the only one.Iam on dialup so big phone bills,i stay up for ridiculous hours.

I was on that road for about 5 years, 3 of which were regular internet usage (ie 4 hours+ per day, I didn't really have a life outside of the internet for a while). Eventually the parents became tired of the giant phone bills and let me put and antenna on the roof to connect to irishWAN.

Now I'm happy

PurpleFistMixer

Ah, broadband...

Before I'd had 56k, but we got a sweet deal off IOL that was flatrate on off peak times, and only what, 20 euro a month or something. Still, we had to get broadband 'cause with the 56k (not to mention taking like.. half an hour to download a single song... legally of course ) the phone line was clogged up from 6pm onwards.

marco murphy

Yeh,i made progress.I was talking to a company,iam on my way

Raphael

Diarmsquid wrote:

PC bad for our Education?

Really answers the whole question, doesn't it.... :rolleyes:

declan_lgs

My father left that article on my desk ... I'm certain that he regreats it now.

article wrote:

Computers in the home and school can be bad for pupils' educational health

I told my father that the computer invented my "educational health", and it did... In primary school, even though I did have a PC, I only used it for playing games (and made my first (****) website in 6th class). I was a stupit, cheeky little **** in school and didn't give a crap about education at all (I was the same before I had the computer btw).

Then when I was starting secondary school everything changed... My collection of (pirated) ebooks was getting bigger all the time... I knew that I'd have to improve my work (for some odd reason) if I'd ever be able to do anything in computers... And I did.

So thats what happened. I never really understood it untill a while ago. I was reading this excellent rant, and on the 3rd page it says:

Learning curves have a profound effect on a persons willingness to learn more. And it can even impact their perception of the value of learning.

"And it can even impact their perception of the value of learning", worked for me...

Some ppl use the computer too much (incl. myself), it just depends on what you do with your time on it.

original article wrote:

Computers in the home and school can be bad for pupils' educational health

The articles right.

Eoghan-psych

Computers per se are neither good nor bad.

Certainly, students can get distracted or they can spend too much time surfing or playing games when they should be studying.

However, recent studies show that computer use actually *improves* student performance in many areas.

For example, using a computer improves our ability to write about things in a non-linear way. What this means is people are not limited to writing in ABCDEFG style, where you write the beginning then the bit in the middle, then the bit at the end. With computers you learn to write the bit there, then that other bit, then add a bit to the first bit and so on. It causes us to think a little more about what we are writing - be it an email to arrange a trip to the pub or an essay on the finer points of Anglo Saxon culture.

Thing is, the Irish education system [at primary and secondary levels anyway] is still quite primitive when it comes to technology - as written earlier, the "type Google into the top bar thingy" scenario is all too common.

Stormfox1020

I can see where there coming from in this article, but I strongly detest the statement the PC's Hinder school work and grades etc. Ive noticed that the Irish Education System is still very old fashioned, Compared to the likes of the American public and private systems. For example everyone still seems to write their essays and such by hand. As in the States its mandatory that you have it done a PC with a certain font, size page format etc. Even primary school kids are encouraged to use PC's. In the states I could Email my homework to either my school Email address or my Teachers desktop and print it off easy. If you tried to do that over here you'd probably get laughed at and be told to sit down and shut up. Basically what Im trying to say is that Computers can be a really help to improve your education but only when using the right programmes.

Mysteryfish

Although i agree generally with what you're saying, i.e. that PCs do not hinder education, i don't think you should be using the american school system to back up your argument. It is handy to have the option of typing your homework, etc. but the fact that American teenagers shoolwork standard is set to such an easy level and is much lower than the rest of the world makes you question if computers are part of the problem. PCs are great but they do end up doing a lot of the work for you, perhaps thereby limiting how much you remember as you have not had to go through the trouble of finding it out.

declan_lgs

It got slashdotted :eek: